CS's Rapid Random Character Generator
Brought to you by Ok, I put this up over at my Chat Shack a while back, but I'm not sure many people here have actually ever even been to the Chat Shack, so I'm putting it up here since there's nobody over at my place anymore. Get a six sided die. Roll it for every item. Only re-roll for an item if the result feels very wrong. Save names and artwork for the end. 1) Number of superpowers; once this is determined, write down however many superpowers you rolled. As you do so, try to think about how they might fit together. 2) Gender: If you roll an odd number your character is female, if you roll an even they are male. 3) Fighting Skills: This is fighting capabilities when your character has no powers, increasing with your result, 1 being no combat capability, and 6 being insanely skilled, sure enough MASTER martial artist. 4) Gadgets: Steady scale measured with 1 being no gadgets and 6 being excessive gadgetry, increasing steadily as your result rises, does not include average to low tech stuff. Ex> A combat suit might not count as a gadget if its relatively standard equipment in your characters universe. 5) Renown: This is how well known your character is, increasing according to your results from a small random newspaper article at 1 to world famous at 6. Keep in mind, not everyone is known for good things. 6) Income: How much money your character has at their immediate disposal, increases according to result, 1 being essentially flat broke, and 6 being insanely wealthy 7) Friends / Allies: increasing with your result, 1 being next to none and 6 being virtually everybody 8) Enemies: same as Friends / Allies 9) Overall Quality of Relationships: Roll twice, once for Friends / Allies and once for Enemies. Increases from no particular allegiance at 1 to die hard loyal for friends/allies and life consuming vendetta for enemies at 6. 10) Wittiness: How funny is your character? 1's are complete sticks in the mud, 6's are the character who has a witty reply or joke for everything. 11) Temper: How's your character's temper? Increasing from 1 (super level-headed) to 6 (major league hot head) 12) Allignment: Is your hero good or bad? If you roll an odd number, they're a hero. If you roll even, they're a villain. 13) Classification: How your character stands on their side, for both sides, 1) Lone-wolf 2) Small team 3) Large team 4) Government (Not necessarily yours!) 5) Anti-Hero 6) Will change sides over course of story If you re-roll for this one, combine the results of your two favorite rolls. 14) Control of Powers: how much control does your character have over their power (roll for every power)? Is their power a blunt, unwieldy sledgehammer of a power at a 1, or do they have pinpoint control at a 6? 1) No control at all 2) Can effectively turn it off 3) A little control, they can use their power at half strength or aim 4) A fair deal of control, can control power levels and fairly good aim 5) High degree of control, can control powers very effectively and excellent aim 6) Incredible control, Pinpoint surgically precise control, can do virtually anything with whatever happens to be in the scope of their power 15) Scope of Powers: how powerful IS your character (roll for every power)? Are they a 1, barely powerful enough to count as having a superpower? Or are they a 6, equal to the most powerful incarnation of that superpower you've ever seen? 1) barely powerful enough to count as a superpower 2) a noticeable degree of power 3) about average degree of that power 4) above average degree of that power 5) extremely powerful 6) power near limitless within sphere of power 'Naming' Names can say a lot about your character, or nothing at all. For superhuman characters though, there are some commonalities, and one of the biggest is that they will usually be short, so that they can be snarled by enemies during confrontations, and also, they usually say something about your character. For Codenames: Think about your characters powers, costume, and personality. These often give a nice lead when trying to think of a codename. Now you follow the leads these give you. ->Think about what their powers might be associated with, animals, concepts, physical phenomena, objects, mythological or magical figures, sounds etc. This is a very common source of codenames. ->Think about their costume and gadgets, this can lead to color prefixes in names, such as Black Widow, Red Hood, and Scarlet Witch, or even to their entire code name, like Iron Man, War Machine, Batman, Whiplash, Blue Beetle and Crimson Dynamo. ->Think about your character's personality, if they have any particularly dominant traits, you might think about what animals are associated with those traits, like Tigress (ferocity), Viper or Cat (cunning), Dragon (Power), etc. or if there is an impression they wish to make, you might try to think of something that relates to that impression like if your character wants to instill fear, you might call them something as simple as "Dread" or "Nightmare" If you're having trouble, try google or a thesaurus. If nothing in particular pops out at you, make a list divide it into columns and go through making random pairs, see if anything pops out at you. If nothing does, think about what is completely opposite to some of the things on the list, your character's name can be a massive misnomer that has nothing to do with their powers! Good names are short and to the point, you don't want your character's name to be a huge horrid mouthful that takes forever to say. If it takes you more than a breath to say, it could probably handle being a bit shorter Try to avoid prefixes that will be rendered redundant by display of your character's powers, like adding Psy- to the beginning of a very powerful and obviously psychic character. For their real names/secret identities, ->Think about who your character is and see if there's a name that means that (you would be amazed at the supposed meanings of some names). ->Think about names you like, think about names you don't like. ->Think about people you know or know of who share some traits with the character. ->Think about where your character's from and what names you think might come from that sort of background. ->If you can't think of anything good, look back at the stuff you came up with for the codename, see if there's anything there you could break apart or twist or scramble into a real name (ex> Armageddon =>Megan Donaldson, Crimson Maverick => Rick Sermon, Terra => Tara). ->Try taking the first letter of your character's codename and googling names that start with that letter. ->Find scientists or other prominent figures in the field your character's powers relate to, you can always appropriate a first or last name from one or more of them! Category:Cackling Shadow